


Sanctuary

by jdjunkie



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-28
Updated: 2010-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:09:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdjunkie/pseuds/jdjunkie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Daniel struggles to remember, Jack takes him to the cabin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> Set a few weeks post Fallen/Homecoming

“It’s so peaceful here,” Daniel says, as though he’ s discovered the most valuable commodity in the universe.

“See why I love it?”

“Yes.” The word hisses out in a plume of white breath which hangs in the air, suspended, before vanishing against the metal gray of the Minnesota sky. “The quiet. It’s ... pervasive, enveloping, but not in an oppressive way. Comforting, almost.”

Jack considers the interesting word choice for a moment. Comfort. Is that what Daniel’s seeking in the darkest depths of the winter and the greater depths of his confusion?

“The snowfall. It dampens the sound,” Jack offers.

“I know,” Daniel says quickly, hunching further into his coat and sounding a little irritated. He sounds like that a lot lately. Jack’s never sure if he’s irritated with himself or with Jack. Maybe both. More than likely both. “It’s more than that,” Daniel adds, tone conciliatory, more than a bit weary. His tiredness bleeds through everything and is one of the reasons Fraiser suggested a break was necessary. He’s trying too hard to remember.  “The peace is in the earth here. I can’t explain it. Sorry.” He sighs, lets out a deep, frustrated breath.

It’s early morning. Daniel slept badly – Jack heard him get up at around 3 a.m. and pad his way into the living room where he stayed until dawn.  Jack let him be and rose early, made coffee and suggested a walk before breakfast.

The sun is clawing its way up into the dense, endless dullness that is the December sky, the hazy orange-yellow ball of light doing little to lift the color or the spirits.

The snow is just past ankle deep after a light fall last night. The lake is frozen. It feels like a place out of time.

Jack shifts his gaze from the endless white line of the horizon and turns towards Daniel. “No apology necessary. And I know _exactly_ what you mean. The peace is locked in. It’s in the ground and the trees and the water. And if you ever tell anyone I waxed lyrical about that I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”

Daniel smiles then, and Jack relaxes. It’s not that he’s walking on eggshells, he’s just  ... careful about what he says and how he says it. This is Daniel but this is descended Daniel, newly-returned and struggling and sometimes more vulnerable than Jack can bear or Daniel can comprehend.

Daniel sniffs and fishes in his pocket for a handkerchief, his movements awkward and clumsy thanks to the thick gloves.

“Did I come here? Before?”

Jack closes his eyes. _Sweat-sheened skin and Daniel’s face contorted in ecstasy as Jack comes deep into his body, mingled cries piercing the quiet darkness._ “Once.  When you needed to get away.”

Daniel blows his nose and stuffs the handkerchief back in his pocket. “A sanctuary then?”

_Holding Daniel in front the log fire as he cries out Sha’uri’s death, holding him together as his world falls apart. A chaste kiss to dam the tears that leads to stillness and shocked recognition and desperate, tear-soaked tenderness ..._

“Kind of.” Jack feels gut-punched again that all of this is lost. “I guess it’s always been a sanctuary for me. Right from a kid. My grandfather would take me fishing and out there on the water everything just fell away. All those so important things that haunt you as a kid and seem like nothing now.” He turns and faces the expanse of ice, memories flittering through his mind, touching down and taking off like a summer butterfly.

Comforting.

Daniel shuffles his feet and knocks his boots together. “I wish I could remember being here.”

Jack looks at him again_. Feather-light kisses and straining bodies, difficult conversations and easy, gentle loving._ Daniel looks tired and anxious, as though the weight of trying to regain his lost life is grinding him into that very earth that Daniel seems so anxious to draw some peace from.

“You feel comfortable here, right? It feels ... restful?”

Daniel turns intelligent blue eyes on him, and they’re so much _Daniel _that Jack feels his legs weaken. He missed him so much, so very much, when he was gone.

“I can’t sleep, still. I haven’t slept properly since I ...”  _fell out of heaven, was kicked out, came back, came home_ ... Daniel speaks thoughtfully. He’s thinking it through, the way he always does; analyzing the data, forming a conclusion. “But yes. There is ... something.”

“Then maybe you _do _remember. Maybe you remember things on a deeper level. In a different way. Maybe it’s all there, it will just come back when it’s ready and perhaps not in the way you expect.”

_And I’ll be right here when that happens. Just like I always was._

Daniel smiles. “Were you always this deep?”

Jack laughs, and oh god, it feels good to laugh. He spent a year forgetting how. “Oh yeah. Deeper than the lake.” He tilts his head in the direction of the frozen water.

They stand together, shoulders not quite touching, looking out over the vast whiteness. A sneaky wind blows up, bringing the first few meandering flakes of snow.

“Thank you,” Daniel says, softly.

Jack doesn’t ask for what. Thanks for everything, something, nothing.  Thanks for offering the reassurance he can’t ask for.

“So. Walk or breakfast?” Jack stamps his feet and rubs his hands together.

Daniel takes a deep breath and says with surety, “Walk.”

“Walk it is.”

They set off around the edge of the lake, matching each other stride for stride. Together. And there’s comfort in that.


End file.
